


hell of a scandal-;

by girlwatchings



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M, Tattoo AU, jackson is tattooed what else matters, japril engame
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 07:18:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3969197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlwatchings/pseuds/girlwatchings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>pretty. handsome. strong.</p><p>what a fucking joke.</p><p>---</p><p>tattoo au: jackson gets his first tattoo as a statement. he can't always say the same for the ones that come after that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hell of a scandal-;

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning -- this story will encompass a lot of the relationships that Jackson has within the show, and it will jump around in timelines, from his backstory, to what we see in the show, to moments I've made up for my own enjoyment.
> 
> But rest assured -- Japril is endgame. Always. No matter what happens.

From the time he was 15 and older, people have always – and only – seen him as pretty. Handsome. Strong. Harper Avery’s grandson wasn’t the adorable little boy with stars in his eyes as he listened to surgical marvels around the dinner table. He wasn’t the sweet little man whose favourite board game as a child was Operation.

He was pretty. He was handsome. He was strong.

And from the young ripe age of 15, he’s hated those words. They define him, more than his last name ever will. It’s like he stops having a brain the minute puberty kicks in, the minute he shoots up and he learns that people prefer his smile and his eyes, a lot more to anything he could ever possibly say.

_Jackson Avery? Oh he’s too pretty too hold a scalpel._

From 15 and up, he’s been a canvas. He’s dragged by his grandfather around to balls and galas and fundraisers, as the arm candy of the daughters --

( _and that one son, but he’s not fucking going near that one, not since he and Grey got drunk on tequila the night of his grandpa’s surgery and they commiserate over last names and everything in between_   )

\-- the daughters of Boston’s finest, brightest, smartest. He stops being a person and becomes a canvas. People forget he’s got a brain between his ears, that it feels, that it fires off neurons and makes him move, breathe, that the millions of synapses firing off in his brain make him feel.

_You see the Avery kid up on the Cardio rotation this morning? Totally wouldn’t mind taking him into an on call room for some mind blowing ten minutes._

And okay, it’s not like he’s claiming complete innocence here. He’s known on occasion to use his smile just right, or bat his eyes just one more time, so his TA’s can bump up his grade. Jackson will be the first to admit that it’s easy to resort to his looks to get what he wants, but that’s the thing.

It’s easy.

_He’s gorgeous and an Avery. Does it matter that he has trouble with sutures?_

Pretty. Handsome. Strong.

What a fucking joke.

\--

He gets his first tattoo when he turns 17. With a fake I.D.

( and what a lovely conversation that was, procuring the flimsy plastic card from the resident school asshole –

“Why does Jackson Avery want a fake?”

“None of your damn business. Now are you gonna sell me one or am I gonna have to rec a different narco expert to all my extremely bored and incredibly rich friends?”

\-- he normally doesn’t like resorting to blackmail but hey – desperate times, desperate measures. )

There’s a fundraiser, a gala, and he’s taking this nice young blonde thing – _the incorruptible type most likely_ , Jackson muses, _who probably loves her Mommy very much and adores her Daddy and everything he stands for… what they don’t know is that with one smile and a wink from the young Avery heir, she’d probably be dropping her white lace panties in the ladies room_ but Jackson doesn’t say that part to his grandfather – with him. His grandfather lays out a nice Italian suit on his bed, complete with bow tie, shined shoes and the cologne to wear tonight.

 _Oh yes_. His grandfather is _very_ through.

Either way, Jackson nods, grins, and leaves his math homework heading in the direction of his bathroom to shower. He gets out minutes later, towel around his waist, grandfather nowhere in sight and Jackson makes a spilt second decision.

Fuck the Gala.

Fuck the foundation.

Fuck Harper Avery.

Fuck the Avery Family in general.

Tonight? Jackson makes his own choices.

\--

The tattoo parlour he arrives at is the first one he came across that didn’t look like they ran a drug dealing business in the back. Jackson supposes that’s probably as best as he’s going to get at 11pm on a Friday night in the middle of downtown Boston.

He walks inside, and heavy rap is playing over the speakers, assaulting Jackson’s hearing making it hard for him to orientate who he is, where he is. His thoughts scatter and idly, he thinks that’s probably the intention. Distract people from the pain, from the choice they’re about to make, from how they’re about to alter their body in ways they can’t even imagine.

Not a bad business plan.

“Can I help you, kid?” A man calls out, wry smirk playing on his lips. He’s wearing glasses, jeans, black shirt, black zip-up hoodie, fuck off motorcycle boots on his feet. The only sign that he’s a tattoo artist, that he belongs here, in this place, is the angry snake tattoo curling over his neck, rising from behind the cut of his shirt.

“Uh. Tattoo. Please.” Jackson frowns, his voice shaking, before he mentally scolds himself. He’s making his own choices tonight, blowing off a gala and a easy date to finally, finally take back his own life, his destiny.

The man’s smirk grows and he walks over, holding out his hand. Jackson slips his fake I.D. and a crumpled piece of paper with his design into the older man’s hand.

Snake-man takes one look at the I.D. before his eyes flick up to Jackson, and in that minute the young man knows. The tattoo artist knows it’s a fake, knows he’s a fraud, knows he’s too young to be doing this. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he’s busted for sure. His mother is going to sigh and swallow her words, his grandfather is going to lose it at him when the cops haul him home he’s do fucking done –

“Alright. Come on back then, kid.”

Wait, what?

\--

The tattoo hurts like a bitch. Like, really, really hurts. He takes to sleeping without a shirt on and one arm hanging over the edge of his bed because of how much it hurts to even think about applying pressure to the skin modification.

Jackson doesn’t really understand the point of the design in broad daylight. On the bus, 5 nights ago, heading downtown, it made perfect sense to his angry and tired mind.

Two black bars wrapping around his upper bicep. No spikes, no fancy bells and whistles. Just two, thick, black lines around his bicep.

Jackson thinks that in the light of day, he thinks that they represent balance, how this period in his life is the calm before the storm, the two years of freedom as his family backs off of his life, giving him time and space to decide what he wants to do. What school he wants to go to, what he wants to study, and whether or not he’ll still be attending board meetings in six months’ time, when the summer rolls around and budget drafting begins for the new fiscal year.

Ironic, because this period in his life is supposed to represent balance, serenity and the calm before the storm, and yet he went out and got a tattoo – the night of a gala no less, - he went out and got the one thing that would make his family irrevocably lose their shit.

Oh well. The Avery’s would never pay a plastic surgeon to remove the tattoo anyway, knowing Harper’s hatred and pity of the speciality.

\--

Jackson gets his second tattoo, his second contribution to his body, the day after he takes the MCAT.

He’s freaking the fuck out, essentially, remembering the reaction is family had the last time he did something and didn’t tell them,

(“A tattoo!? Do you know what this makes you look like? What this makes the family look like?”

“Harper!” Catherine Avery snaps, eyes narrowing, lips pursed. “He knows he’s in trouble, you don’t need to remind him with every word. Why do you in fact go take a walk while I deal with my son?”

Harper exhales, inhales, before sharply turning and leaving the room, heading for another wing of the house to cool down in.

Idly Jackson thinks that his Grandpa would really like to punch a few holes in a few walls but wouldn’t, couldn’t run the risk of damaging his surgeon’s hands.

“Jackson…”

“Save it, Mom, I’ve already heard the lecture. I don’t wanna hear it again.”

“Fine. Then tell me why. Tell me why it was so important to you that this happen, that you have this tattoo, at this point, right here, right now,”

Jackson could tell her the truth. He could tell her that he’s tried of being the Harper Avery Foundation’s favourite piece of arm candy, that he’s so tired of just being pretty, handsome and strong. That he wants to be more, that he can be more yet no one is going to listen to him. But then he remembers. This is his mother. She’s one of the board’s most needed and trusted members.

He can’t tell her anything.

“It’s been a while since I’ve pissed Grandpa off. Figured his regularly scheduled heart attack was a bit overdue.” )

But Jackson can’t think about that, not right now. He can’t think about his family, about his mother, about his grandfather, about the Foundation or his future or anything in-between that. He just took the MCAT and he’s freaking out because he’s 80% sure he passed with flying colours. Jackson has that feeling, that gut inhabitation that he did what no one else believed he could do.

He’s a fucking Avery and no one believed him but he’s going to pass the fucking MCAT.

It’s time to celebrate.

\--

By the time the Mercy West and Seattle Grace merger happens, Jackson is more tattooed then he ever thought he would be. From his bicep, to his left shoulder, even down the back and front of his chest – it’s all covered in black ink.

There’s lines and bars and swirls and flames and spirals, all branching out from those original two lines around his bicep. Each drop of ink is there for a purpose, a reason. Each has a story behind it, a moment.

Granted, no one really knows all those stories but one day, Jackson thinks, one day someone will know all the stories.

\--

“What does this one mean?” Lexie murmurs, her finger tracing a thick black curve that starts from his shoulder, curves out along and over his shoulder blade before stopping at the start of his spine.

Jackson chuckles, and turns his head over to face the girl sharing his bed.

“21. New Orleans. Visiting cousins. The black sheep of the family were all together, and we decided to do something to make us even more outcasts. After all whiskey shots can only do so much,”

Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

Jackson was 19, his father had just shown up on his doorstep during the winter holidays. It was the first time Jackson had seen him since he left. The young Avery took one look at the man, and shoved past him into the cold Boston winter, right as his mother arrived at the door and saw the long lost Carson Avery in the flesh.

The curve is on his shoulder, towards the base of his spine, because it was the spot his father touched, the last time Jackson saw his father show any affection for him.

He was 8 and his father walked out the door with a pat on the shoulder, a “see you later, bud,” and half-hearted smile.

But he can’t tell Lexie that, not yet. Jackson sees the way she still looks at Sloan, the way her eyes get kind of misty when she sees him flirting with some nurse from Derm or Shepherd’s OR.

No, he can’t tell Lexie the stories, at least not yet.

\--

“This one. Shoulder curve up along the nerve path to the base of your spine,” April asks, her fingers walking the path of his ink, of his flesh.

He knows without opening his eyes or his heart which one it is. “Uh,” Jackson swallows roughly and expels a sharp breath. “I was 19. My dad, he. He, uh showed up on me and my Mom’s doorstep during winter break. It was the first time I was able to go home during med school, and everyone was thrilled. Everyone was happy. Then… I opened the door, thinking it was another cousin and he was there. I saw him, walked right past him and got the ink..”

“But why there?” His beautiful red-head whispers, fingers brushing the start of his spine, the end of the tattoo.

“Because,” Jackson replies simply, rolling over and looking April in the eyes, “Because it was the last time my Dad ever showed affection to me. When he left, he uh, he half smiled at me, patted my shoulder and told me that he’d see me later. 14 years is a long time for a see me later, don’t you think?”

“Jackson…”

“Don’t, okay? I don’t want the pity,” Jackson hisses, eyes slamming shut.

He never should have told her the stories. No one deserves to know the stories. The stories should be for him, and him alone…

“Not knowing you, not knowing the boy you grew up as, the man you are now, there is no greater sadness I can picture. Your Dad… he lost the chance to know someone, someone who is brilliant, and kind, and smart and everything an amazing surgeon should be. Everything an amazing friend, and son, and lover, should be. And him leaving, him never getting to know how amazing you’ve become? That is never on you, or your Mom. That’s on him.”

Jackson cracks one eye open, and looks at April Kepner. He drinks in her red hair, wild as the fire they remind him of, he gets drunk on her eyes and lips, perfectly carved into her soft face. He looks at her, drinks her in, gets his fill, comes up for air and still, Jackson wants more.

So he smiles, and pulls his redhead closer, taking comfort in the knowledge that he can share the stories with someone, finally.

\--

Stephanie asks once, twice, multiple times actually, about that curve. He smirks at her, eyes her with his Carson Avery certified eyes, and whispers words to her, asks her if she really wants to know some boring story about teenage rebellion in the world of powerful medicine.

She replies something, something smart, something opposite of Lexie and… her… but Jackson doesn’t hear her.

There’s only two girls he’s ever told the stories too, or thought about.

One died.

The other is getting married in two months.

Jackson doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that the idea of telling Stephanie about his ink doesn’t even cross his mind.

\--


End file.
